The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 16

16. Opportunities Don’t Come Often (4)

“Hey, Eun-jin. How do you know Soo-won? You weren’t in the same class as him in the first grade. And you didn’t really do any extracurricular activities together either.”

A boy whose upper lip was just starting to get a little dark slyly asked Park Eun-jin.

“Huh? Soo-won? He’s just famous at school.”

“You don’t know him personally or anything?”

She found the guy’s question hilarious. He thought he was hiding his feelings, but it was so obvious.

“Yeah, I took a level-based class with him once, but he probably doesn’t even remember me.”

“Come on, no way. You’re so famous, Eun-jin.”

Eun-jin just laughed at the boy’s exaggerated voice.

“Oh, there’s Choi Soo-won.”

Taller than others, with long arms and legs, he looked more like a model than an athlete.

As expected, all the adults gathered there seemed to be there for him, as they all picked up their cameras and started taking pictures of Soo-won while chatting idly.

‘Two taps on the hat with his left hand.’

He tapped his head twice with his left hand. Originally, he would draw two lines on the ground with his bat and shrug once.

‘But it’s changed since the last game.’

He taps the home plate once with his bat and then swings it around to get into position.

The stadium went silent for a moment.

Was it because the chattering adults had all quieted down? No, it wasn’t just that simple. The kids gathered there felt something too – that the batter at the plate was different.

First pitch.

Choi Soo-won didn’t swing. The umpire’s hand didn’t go up.

Ball.

‘Eun-jin, that’s a ball. Baseball is a game where the kid throwing the ball is the pitcher, and the pitcher throws the ball for the batter, Soo-won, to hit. But you don’t have to hit a ball that misses. That ball missed. If it misses four times, Soo-won gets to go to first base, and if he doesn’t hit a properly thrown ball three times, he’s out.’

It was tolerable when he sidled up and whispered to me because his intentions were so obvious. That’s why I didn’t bother telling him that I knew the rules of baseball better than he did.

But was it a mistake to hold back? The guy kept talking, and the story that followed made her very uncomfortable.

‘I don’t think he’s going to set a new record today. Actually, Mokdong Stadium is a really hard stadium for high school players to hit home runs in. And in the last game, the opposing pitcher underestimated Soo-won and kept challenging him head-on, but today they’re going to avoid him like they did a little while ago. In baseball, there’s nothing a batter can do if the pitcher doesn’t want to face him properly. So, what I’m saying is…’

The guy hesitated for a moment.

I wasn’t really curious. He was probably going to ask me to have dinner with him after the game.

“Woo-bin. Shh!!”

“Uh… uh?”

“You’re distracting me from watching the game. And you don’t say a ball ‘misses,’ you say it’s ‘out of the zone.’ The pitcher might throw it there on purpose.”

Woo-bin’s face turned as red as a beet.

“I… I know that. I was just trying to explain it to you easily…”

“Okay, Woo-bin. So let’s watch the game.”

For a moment, I regretted it, wondering if I had created another hater.

But that thought disappeared the moment Choi Soo-won performed his routine again at the plate and raised his bat 멋지게 [meotjige – stylishly/coolly].

***

The quiet tension on the ground was quite funny.

I mean, what is it about this that makes it so dramatic?

The first pitch thrown by the pitcher on the mound went far away enough that there was no reason to even try to hit it. It’s amazing that the catcher caught it.

I lightly performed my routine and prepared to hit.

Today’s opponent is Pungcheon High.

Not as good as Joongang High, but still a bit ambiguous to call them prestigious. At best, they’re good enough to make it to the second round of the national tournament. If they’re lucky, they might make it to the third round. I heard that Pungcheon High’s ace has a fastball that tops out at 141 km/h and specializes in changeups. I don’t remember well, but if that’s the case, he probably would have been drafted into the pros, right? And like many lower-round picks, he probably would have been released within a year or two.

Second ball.

His form wasn’t bad, but the feel of the ball is different.

-Bang!!

“Strike!!”

It was a changeup after all.

Ball count 1-1.

I was aiming for the fastball that he throws at 143 km/h, so my timing wasn’t very good. Of course, even with that bad timing, I was confident that I could hit a ball that would go over the infielders’ heads. After all, the pitchers I used to face were monsters who threw changeups at 143 km/h.

But now I’m in a situation where I’m challenging a record that hasn’t been broken in 20 years.

Oh, weren’t you not going to pay attention to that?

Of course not.

It’s just that it’s a record that I should be able to achieve so easily that there’s no need to argue about it.

Did he think that I was flustered by his changeup and couldn’t react? The pitcher on the mound looked quite confident. Come to think of it, even though I’ve hit three home runs in a row, I was famous as a pitcher until now, not as a nationally known batter.

Before regression.

I’m not the home run king Choi Soo-won that everyone avoids.

And so, the third.

The ball comes flying.

A low, fast ball.

It was a good ball.

Well, that’s only at the high school level.

-Clang!!

I pulled it perfectly.

A hit that soared over the shortstop’s head. I watched the ball for about 0.1 seconds and then threw the bat away.

Pungcheon High’s left fielder hurriedly rushed towards the fence, but it’s no use. That’s a ball that even Alex Gordon, who showed the best left field defense of the 2000s, couldn’t have caught in his prime.

It’s only natural.

A crazy fielder can steal hits, and sometimes even steal home runs, but there can’t be a fielder who can steal a ball that goes over the fence and hits the outfield net.

Four home runs in a row.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough power to hit it out of Mokdong Stadium, let alone hit the top of the net. If Mokdong had an outfield like other stadiums, it would have been in the middle of the first floor? If it was Jamsil [a famous baseball stadium in Seoul], and if the outfielder was Alex Gordon, he might have caught it. But as everyone knows, there’s no such thing as ‘if’ in baseball.

Applause and cheers poured out for me as I jogged lightly to first base. It was only a small crowd of less than three hundred people, but it wasn’t bad.

“Crazy!! Crazy!! Crazy!!!”

As always, Jo Yu-jin was the first to jump up and down and run towards me, followed by Senior Gyu-hyuk, who I’d become friends with over the past few days.

“You actually did it. Wow, crazy. I’d be so nervous that I wouldn’t even be able to swing my bat properly.”

“Definitely the flexibility of the core… Soo-won, let me touch your waist for a second.”

It wasn’t just them.

Timon and Pumbaa [nicknames for two teammates, referencing the characters from ‘The Lion King’], and many other teammates, even the coach and the manager all ran out to celebrate my fourth home run.

For almost 2 or 3 minutes.

The pitcher on the mound frowned, but maybe because it was a record that hadn’t been broken in 20 years, neither the opposing team nor the umpire stopped us.

I tried to calm people down and tell them to stop and go in, but they were too excited to understand.

I was embarrassed. Very, very embarrassed.

Oh, I’m the only one who knows I’ve regressed, and this is still a record that hasn’t been broken in 20 years, so why should I be embarrassed?

Sigh…

***

-Tap tap tap tap

Lee Ji-yeon’s fingers moved busily.

It wasn’t professional baseball, but it was still a record that hadn’t been broken in 20 years. If it were a professional game, it would be news worthy of a short article written in advance. Even in high school baseball, it’s worth publishing an article solely on this topic, rather than an article that summarizes the results of the game.

She opened the version of the article that had been written in advance about the four consecutive home runs and added a few explanations of the situation before sending it to the team leader via email.

Even if the article about the three consecutive home runs is okay, the four consecutive home runs are a record that hasn’t been broken in 20 years. Moreover, since the player who previously hit four consecutive home runs is a home run king who remains a legend in the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization], this article comparing him to that player will surely satisfy the team leader.

And in the meantime, the game continued.

In fact, Choi Soo-won hit a home run so easily that it was a bit overshadowed, but Lee Kyung-seok, the ace of Pungcheon High, was not a pitcher to be ignored. With a fastball that tops out at 141 km/h and a highly polished changeup, he could have been a top-round pick if his speed was only 3-4 km/h faster.

In fact, in today’s game,

Despite allowing Choi Soo-won a solo home run, Lee Kyung-seok was not shaken at all and cleanly blocked Joongang High’s batters, allowing only one hit in the first and second innings combined.

Of course, Joongang High’s pitcher wasn’t bad today either.

‘Was his name Ahn Byung-young?’

Although he collapsed ridiculously in the previous game against Cheonnam High and showed a bad side, Cheonnam High is a regular in the top four of the national tournament. That means that the level of the Cheonnam High batters was high, rather than the level of the pitcher being low. It’s rare to have a team with three batters in the starting lineup who are sure to be drafted.

On the other hand, their opponent today, Pungcheon High, was a typical high school baseball team.

A fastball that tops out at 132 km/h and a fairly experienced slider, and a curveball.

Ahn Byung-young also allowed only two hits and one walk in two innings, shutting out Pungcheon High’s lineup.

And so, at the top of the 3rd inning,

The lead batter, catcher Jo Yu-jin, was retired with a ground ball to the infield.

Next up was Choi Soo-won, the star of the day, for his second at-bat.

He swung his bat.

-Clang

A moment of silence.

And then, an enormous roar erupted that made it hard to believe that there were only about three hundred people gathered at this baseball stadium. Even the scout who came up to take a video of Choi Soo-won’s batting today was among those cheering.

Lee Ji-yeon quickly opened her smartphone.

“Team leader, about the article I sent you. Ah, yes, that one. You haven’t uploaded it yet, have you? No, I’m not rushing you, but please discard it for now. I’ll write a new article and send it to you. Yes, I’ll send it right away. Oh, and we might have to publish another article today. First, use what I’m sending you now for internet news, and prepare a separate one for the print edition. No, it’s a new record, a new record!! Not a tie. A new record. Yes!! Five home runs in a row. Five home runs!!”

The same spot as before.

The baseball that Choi Soo-won had hit was rolling between the right outfield fence and the net.

“It’s not over. It’s in progress. I don’t know what’s going to happen. No!! Please clear the space on the page. The game ends after five o’clock, how can I send it by five o’clock? Team leader, you clearly promised. I’m really going to quit if you don’t put it in the paper.”

Top of the 3rd inning.

Choi Soo-won was stepping on third base and returning home with a light step.

As if it were natural.